In Their Own Words

December 13, 1864

Fall of Fort McAllister Recorded

Maj. Henry Hitchcock, Sherman’s secretary, recorded in his diary the following account of the fall of Fort McAllister:

“Tonight Col. Ewing brought back from beyond the Ogeechee River the glorious news that today at 41/2 P.M. the 2d Division, 15th Army Corps, under General Hazen (Sherman’s old division, formerly the 5th Division of the Army of Tennessee) assaulted and carried Fort McAllister, a strong rebel fort on west bank of Ogeechee River, the obstacle to our communication with the fleet below Gen. Sherman, Gen. Howard, Gen. Giles A. Smith and divers other officers including several of our staff - unhappily not including myself - saw the charge and capture from the roof of a mill three miles distant.”

Source: M.A. DeWolfe Howe (ed.), Marching with Sherman: Passages from the Letters and Campaign Diaries of Henry Hitchcock, Major and assistant Adjutant General of Volunteers, November 1864-May 1865 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 172-173.